But we gamble, eh, _mon_ Baree ?" "With our last cent," came the answer of the other man, and in the voice was grimness and enthusiasm.

It was a game of life or extinction now.
March, and a few warm days, which melted the snows only that they might crust again.

Back and forth traveled the bobsled to Tabernacle, only to meet with disappointment.
"I've wired the agent at Denver three times about that stuff," came the announcement of the combined telegrapher and general supervisor of freight at the little station.

"He's told me that he'd let me know as soon as it got in.

But nothing's come yet." A week more, and another week after that, in which spring taunted the hills, causing the streams to run bank-full with the melting waters of the snow, in which a lone robin made his appearance about the camp,--only to fade as quickly as he had come.